ChessBase/Fritz tips

THANKS billyblatt! The one dam word I did NOT click on in all the "pull down menus" was the right one - I thought it had something to do with replaying the game, why can't software developers ever name things KORRECTLY? They're VCR buttons not "replay" buttons everyplace else!

I once had the same problem. I went through the whole menu system maybe a dozen times before i found those buttons. It shoudn't be 'hidden' in the right click, that is for cut and paste and other context sensitive stuff, not for major program features...lol

Two answers, @NimzoRoy, come to mind. First, software programmers are not chess players and often submit their programs to marketers for sale, not players for evaluation and criticism. It's amazing the user-unfriendly things I see in some of today's software.

The other possible answer is that Chessbase products are made in Germany and their terminology may not "translate" into English as originally intended.

What I try to do when I find software problems is send an e-mail with a suggestion for improvement (not a complaint which will be trashed). One which I think needs to be addressed (for example) is a "sticky" switch to turn the chess engine off by user choice as a default instead of having to disable it everytime you reset a board or position.

@mldavis617 you raise some good pts and maybe the one about translating German to English accounts for some confusing (to me at least) terminology. BUT it's been awhile since user-unfriendly software has amazed me, it's obvious a lot of companies either don't have a clue or couldn't care less about how unfriendly their software is, as long as it's still making money for them. Apparently a lot of software developers never use the software they're designing, so who cares whether it's user-friendly or not?

Years ago I noticed WPs frequently use the most obscure and irrelevant labels possible for important features, minus the excuse of not starting out in english to begin with. For example, WordPerfect (or was that MS-Works or Office?) had no index or content listings for "backup" as I recall - whatever idiotic and totally irrelevant term they used instead was so "anti-intuitive" I can't even remember what it was.

Hi Guys! I am new to chess and now a days using fritz 13.while playing i ve noticed that in every game i play in fritz 13 computer never do the first move, i ve to do the first move of the game everytime.Is there a way so computer start the game for me i mean computer do the first move of the game.i ve tried in options change side but it just select play as black or white, nothing with the move.If someone know it please help thanks..

Hi Guys! I am new to chess and now a days using fritz 13.while playing i ve noticed that in every game i play in fritz 13 computer never do the first move, i ve to do the first move of the game everytime.Is there a way so computer start the game for me i mean computer do the first move of the game.i ve tried in options change side but it just select play as black or white, nothing with the move.If someone know it please help thanks..

"Apparently a lot of software developers never use the software they're designing, so who cares whether it's user-friendly or not? "

I am guessing the problem is the opposite - the software developers use the software so much, that they have lost touch with how non-user friendly it is.

As a software developer I have seen this problem a lot. The developer makes a GUI that is intuitive to *them*, and they understand what each button is supposed to do, and all of the "quirks". This is sometimes called the "curse of knowledge". Once you know how to do something, you can't imagine the other person not knowing that same information.

I think what chessbase needs to do is hire some software usability experts, and bring in some people that have never used their software before, and watch what they do. It will probably be a very eye opening experience.

My best advice to anyone that wants to use fritz/chessbase, etc, is that you have to sit down and read the manual. You are never going to figure out some of the stuff on your own. (Same with a Chronos clock).

It all depends on your needs and perspective. In general, simplicity means to me "stripped down" or "devoid of many useful features" while complex places additional burdens on users to understand which of many options to use. (A good example is comparing simple digital image editors such as Elements with Photoshop). The more features, the more complexity and the longer the learning curve. Fritz/Chessbase and Chronos are excellent examples - they do essentially everything but they take time to learn. Once you invest time in Reading The Factory Manual (RTFM), it all makes sense. Try to figure it out on your own and you'll end up frustrated because you can't make it do what you want, or you'll miss out on features you might like but don't know about.

Fritz can open any collection of games using the database browser. Use Database window - Menu View - Database Browser to open the database collection. Put the collections into the MyDocuments/Chessbase/Shop folder. If they aren't in .cbh format, Fritz will convert them. Also, I think you can select multiple games, copy them to the clipboard and then paste them into the database folder using the Paste function.

It all depends on your needs and perspective. In general, simplicity means to me "stripped down" or "devoid of many useful features" while complex places additional burdens on users to understand which of many options to use. (A good example is comparing simple digital image editors such as Elements with Photoshop). The more features, the more complexity and the longer the learning curve. Fritz/Chessbase and Chronos are excellent examples - they do essentially everything but they take time to learn. Once you invest time in Reading The Factory Manual (RTFM), it all makes sense. Try to figure it out on your own and you'll end up frustrated because you can't make it do what you want, or you'll miss out on features you might like but don't know about.

Yes, I think Fritz 13 has got so complicated, you spend more time trying to work out how to use it than actually analysing games.

Yes, I think Fritz 13 has got so complicated, you spend more time trying to work out how to use it than actually analysing games.

As I wrote above, you can either work with a simple program with few options, or you can RTFM and learn to use any and all of what you need. I like Fritz 13 and find it very intuitive to use once you simply look up the function you want and see how to implement it. The F1 key is a simple resource.